Live With The Nerds
Don't Be One
August 2001
Later that night we swung by Midori to eat, only to be locked out -- turns out
that some of the staff was "too drunk" and was sent home early, but since we're
regulars, the let us in anyway. The next day my back was kinda sore (I played without
my brace) so I mostly rested, and caught up on my magazines in between icing and
stretching.
Sunday I played vball at the NAGVA gym, trying to tune up for Sac some more, this
time most of the team was there. I tried to play with my brace but it made me over
heat and limited mobility way too much. After my back was warm I managed to play
fairly effectively, still not quite in shape, but should be ok by next weekend. My
ankle did get a bit sore again, but I think thats because I'm still a bit late to
the ball and an trying to slide through it to set.
This weekend was also a busy one on my cell phone, got keep in touch calls
from Ken and Kristy, which was nice. In fact Ken had one of those small world
moments -- seems like he met someone that was from the bay area, not only did she
know Kit, but thought she recognized my name -- I'm having him check, but I think
its a woman I was talking to on the plane back to San Jose about a year and a half
ago, so odd that he'd run into her.
Oh well, did manage to go see the Giants (no hr by bonds) play the Braves (maddux was
pretty awesome) but they lost -- imagine throwing a 2 hitter, complete game and losing
2-1 .. it was a pretty good game, even if it was long -- and PacBell Park is pretty nice.
Saturday was shopping day, had to find Karen's bday gift -- went to the Stanford Mall,
then stopped by a vball tourny to see Kit and her partner get pasted (badly) by
Miki and Jae. Then it was off to Valley Fair Mall to pick up the rest of her gift
and some wrapping paper. While there I managed to check out Ivar's (yes from seattle)
in the food court -- finally a good fish and chips place, with the original red chowder
too boot, I'll probably be shopping there a bit more now ;)
Sunday was pick up karen and take her to the lunch party (Gordon's House of Fine Eats)
for her birthday. That was pretty fun, although she brought lots of bags back from NY
and didn't open any of her presents at the table. Food was pretty good as always, can't
believe she threw her own parties both here and in NY. Just tried to unwind for the
rest of the day.
My back has been pretty iffy, one day it'll feel fine, just twinges, and others it'll
be sore in the morning - I've taken to wearing my back brace for most of the morning
just to keep it warm, and then (after tiring of it) I'll take it off and see if
I can stretch my back out in the afternoon/evening (Psoas stretches seem to work the
best). In any case I went to yoga today (the cuties were missing though) and it was
surprisingly stable through most of it, must have been the attention to form, as
well as the good warm up. The true test will be how it responds tomorrow -- good
thing I have a massage scheduled too. If all goes well I'll try bball on wed, that
way I can get some running in before the Sacramento tourny.
At least it was executed quickly, hopefully it was a surgical cut, and deep enough
without damaging the company too badly. The package was fair, but not too special,
two months severance, outplacement services, cobra extension, oh and extension of
the exercise period for vested options, for options > $14 up to a year to exercise
instead of the normal 90 days. It appears we're done for the near future unless the
economy takes another severe down turn.
Managed to get ahold of Karen Soo to wish her a happy 30th birthday, and had dinner
with Karen Ando before she moves to San Leandro, but I heard some bad news that
my friend's mother in Hawaii had passed away recently. Guess it was just a very
mixed day.
Oh yeah, I missed getting the package so I won't be moving back to Seattle anytime
soon ;)
Currently all of our QA folks are in a tizzy since we re-org'd last week, mainly to
move them, and then some of their managers were RIF'd today. I guess the managers
were notified before the workers will be told. I suppose I should worry some, but
then I've been through lots of layoffs before, at least this time I have confidence
that its being done for the right reasons, as opposed to some of the (unnamed) previous
companies whos upper management was totally clueless. In those other companies you would
beg for the package cuz you knew they were going down the tubes. If I get layed off
I guess I'll just head back to Seattle.
My clubs came today, so of course late in the afternoon I was putting golf balls
around the hallways (and I have a noisy putter to boot). Yeah some folks thought
it was poor form, and even possibly tempting fate, but ya know, stress reduction
is way more important, and besides, one hour of goofing off (especially after
a major lab success) isn't going to swing the balance one way or the other. Especially
since all the managers seem to have gone into hiding (or shock) after their all
hands meeting.
The funny part is the secrecy -- the managers "have a script" and they specifically
aren't allowed to talk about the package or the people involved -- we'll probably
hear all by the end of tomorrow though, grapevines are that way. Surprisingly
there are a lot of folks at work who have never been through layoffs, must be
something about the area having a lot of diverse companies, hopefully the survivors
won't be too distraught to get back up to speed after the knives have fallen.
On the plus side my back was better today, actually went to work without my brace
and drug free the whole day with nary an ill effect. Did try and swing a pitching
iron, but the follow through was a bit painful so I probably won't head to the
driving range for a few more days at least. Hopefully next week it'll be yoga
bball and vball.
Sunday it was back to the tourny, they played pretty good in spurts but not well
enough to win their pool. Was going to watch Kit play too, but by the time I got
there, her team was bailing after a pretty poor showing (they were in the wrong division).
Even still, managed to see Francisco as well as Mel and Roy (he cut a ball inside of
a double block on the 2' line -- just amazing) Monday night I went to watch Kiz and
another manager from work play soccer again -- boy what a difference a few players
will make out on the field.
I was icing and stretching most of the weekend, and then went drug free today, thought
I'd even try my yoga class to see if I could rehab a bit, but it was cancelled. I guess
I'll just be taking it easier for the rest of the week -- maybe I'll try the
wed yoga class instead, since I probably should be running on the bbal court yet.
It looks like my clubs are almost here, hopefully swinging them won't hurt too much.
This afternoon I had a massage, not by my normal massuse, but by one of her
business partners -- good thing too, cuz she was stronger, and did a better
job on my psoas muscles (deep tissue, muscles that connect to the front of my spine)
that seemed to really settle down my back this evening, evnen though I'm still icing
it, it feels pretty good. Hopefully I'll be able to play a bit in a couple of weeks.
I also had lunch with Kiz today, which is always entertaining, then I
found out that Sam's having a bbq saturday so I'm going to swing by there
for a bit -- may also go watch Karen and Ruthie's coed team play at SJ State.
The rest of the week was pretty uneventful -- played a bit of bball, but
ended up with sore ankles (and calf cramps), good thing I had a massage
scheduled the next day.
Also managed to catch dinner with Karen (Midori sushi yeah !!) midweek, and
then we spent most of saturday hanging out in Mountain View. Tried a new
noodle shop for lunch, pretty good, too bad it doesn't open late -- then
we were off ot see a movie (Final Fantasy, why were the guys rendered better
than the women??).
Later we were supposed to meet up with Cheryl & Kent at the Palo Alto
Obon, but she bailed after going running -- I went anyway and ate up a storm
with Kent and Cheryl. They even had yellow watermelon there -- had to try
a taste of just about everything.
Sunday was off to the SF Aloha festival with Karen and Ruthie, Sam and Ivy
were supposed to meet us there but they gave up after they couldn't find
the place. Lines at the food booths were extemely long, but the music was
pretty good, and there were lots of island style craft booths. After that
we headed over to Jtown to see some of the SF Obon -- not much there, saw
some dancing but missed the Taiko group, and there weren't very many food booths
at all, probably because of all of the resturants in the area.
Decent but busy week, Monday I skipped yoga to go to my
manager's going away dinner (sabbatical to Italy) everyone brought their kids so
it was pretty fun. On Tuesday I was supposed to go to dinner/movie with
Kiz but she bagged out. Wednesday I played bball, managed to run ok, but the
floor was slippery so I started getting a bit of shin splints, and my knee is
slightly sore but nothing so bad as to keep me out of the tourny this weekend. On
the plus side I played most of the night without my brace and the back was a bit
sore but not unusually so the next day.
Well this past weekend was exercise galore, actually back to my
normal routine so I could tune up for the sacramento tourny. Thursday
I managed a movie with Kiz (Princess Diaries, very funny) then Friday I thought
I'd swing by City Beach to try and play a bit. Most of the people I knew were already
on teams, and I was losing intrest quickly, and was thinking about leaving, until
Will, Sam, Ivy and Brown showed up -- luckily they let me play with them, and that
was a lot of fun (not for the other teams though who weren't quite at the same level)
In fact, I didn't even set for them, they had me play front row for Ivy most of the
time (we had 7) and I probably surprised a few people with my hitting and blocking --
its actually amazing what can happen with a good setter and some really strong
players to take the pressure off.
Ok, played bball tonight, wore my back brace even though it makes me sweat more and
overheat a bit.. Things were going ok till I got clocked right above my eye while
coming around a pick. Was kinda slow for a while after that -- did manage to go pretty
hard though, eneded up on the ground about 3 times, even grabbed a few rebounds. Good
thing was that I had no pain at all in my back, not even tightness, my ankle on the
other hand, got a bit sore since I hadn't exercised in a couple of weeks. Going to
be icing everything tonight, and then we'll see tomorrow.
So stressful, tried to take my mind off it all by going to see a movie (Rush Hour 2)
but even that wasn't more than a temporary diversion. Add to that the fact that
I had to interview a possible new manager (after we layed off about 4 of them, go
figure) and the the folks we layed off came back on friday to clean out their desks,
it was pretty much a wasted end of the week.
Carnage, confusion and distrust reigned supreme for the whole day, not as
near as bad for me as for those who have never been through it before. Turns out that
the 1st level managers had no input whatsoever, only director level and above
were able to generate the hit list. Something to do with SEC rules and the fact
that earnings were due and any layoffs (or leaking thereof) would be considered
advanced information. Needless to say, there were a few surprises, and what some
of us thought were "poorly considered" decisions, if not outright mistakes.
Well now the bad news begins, my company (Network Appliance Inc) had their
earnings report for this past quarter, I guess we barely scraped by, but then
they announced layoffs for this coming quarter. About 200 people (8% of the company
or so) will be cut, probably in the next day or so, since they postponed our all
hands meeting from wed to thursday.
Dispite my injury, it was a fun, sports filled weekend, first I watched Kiz play
some soccer, then saturday it was off to the JACL tourny to see Karen, Sam, Mikey,
Ruthie, Peter, Tong-su, and Ivy play -- followed by a bbq at Sam's house (after we
waited an hour on his porch). The food was excellent, but the killer chocolate was
courtesy of Will, good thing he brought plenty.
Yesterday was not a good day at all, was playing bball, and during the first game
someone tried to block my layup, didn't knock me down cuz he was nice enough
to hold on to me, but we both came down, on my left leg, which jammed my hip
and strained my low back. Today I managed to make it to my chiropractor, so
hopefully the worst is over (one leg was 3/4 of an inch shorter than the other
because of the jam) but I still had to ice almost the whole day at work.
Today was pretty good, got a bunch of work done, then headed off to
sub for Bubba's coed vball team -- turns out it was playoffs and we
won so now I'm the proud owner of a new IVL championship tshirt. In fact
since I sub'd about half the games last quarter too (and they won) I'm getting
a tshirt for that as well.
A good week, and weekend, but very busy. Managed lunch with Kiz, then
surprisingly (since she was so busy) we even managed to catch a movie
(Legally Blonde -- kinda funny, but stereotypical).
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